For Discussion Gender Inequality and Entrepreneurship in The
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OECD-MENA INVESTMENT PROGRAMME MENA-OECD WOMEN’S BUSINESS FORUM Working Draft – For Discussion Gender inequality and entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa A statistical portrait December 2013 This draft report presents a descriptive overview of women’s economic activity in the MENA region based on statistical sources. The report is submitted for discussion to the OECD-MENA Women’s Business Forum annual meeting on 2 December 2013 in Rabat, Morocco. Following the meeting the document will be revised, building on the discussions, and prepared for publication. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The OECD-MENA Women’s Business Forum (WBF), coordinated by Ms Nicola Ehlermann-Cache, Deputy Head, MENA-OECD Investment Programme in the OECD Global Relations Secretariat, is an inter-regional network of government, private sector and civil society representatives which promotes efforts to accelerate women’s enterprise development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Ms Nicola Ehlermann-Cache, conceived and developed the project; she managed and supervised this report. The report has been mainly prepared by Ms Susan Joekes, Director, SPJ Consulting, senior consultant to the OECD and member the OECD-MENA Women’s Business Forum. It has benefited from the editorial support of Ms Parmjeet Bouffay, Analyst, OECD-MENA Investment Programme and Mr Lutz Sager, Carlo Schmid Fellow, OECD-MENA Investment Programme. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................. 4 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 6 WOMEN ENTERING THE LABOUR MARKET ...................................................................... 7 Improvements in women’s education ........................................................................................ 7 Female labour force participation rates ..................................................................................... 9 Age- and education-related participation rates ........................................................................ 11 Unemployment, gender, and youth .......................................................................................... 13 WOMEN’S WORK IN THE ECONOMY ................................................................................. 17 Women’s Employment in MENA economies ......................................................................... 17 Women in the workforce in different economic sectors .......................................................... 19 Employment in the public sector ............................................................................................. 23 The earnings of women workers in MENA ............................................................................. 25 ENTREPRENEURSHIP ............................................................................................................. 29 Gender inequality in entrepreneurship and business ............................................................... 29 Personal characteristics of entrepreneurs ................................................................................. 33 Main features of women’s enterprises ..................................................................................... 34 Trends of women’s entrepreneurship ...................................................................................... 36 ANNEX ....................................................................................................................................... 41 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 42 3 SUMMARY This report is a descriptive account based on international statistical sources of women’s position and gender inequalities in employment and entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The statistical coverage of these issues is limited. The report notes weaknesses and gaps in the data, which sometimes escape notice. Only a few indicators are recorded comprehensively at the regional (MENA) or sub-regional level (for North Africa, the Middle East and sometimes the Gulf separately). In other cases, data is only available for subsets of MENA economies, whose size and composition varies from case to case. Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan (and latterly the Palestinian Territories) tend to have the strongest national datasets, or are the most willing to share them with international statistical agencies1. Based on the limited sources of data, the following picture emerges. Women in MENA economies are increasingly well prepared for work in the productive economy and an increasing number, although still the minority, want to participate in the labour force. The labour demand side of the economy does not, however, adequately offer women the opportunity to work. There have been some limited improvements in the recent past, but the momentum of change has slackened and in some instances gone into reverse. On the three most important measures, it is clear that the level of women’s engagement in the economy in MENA lags far behind the rest of the world. First, in terms of female labour force participation, 24 per cent of adult women in MENA – fewer than one in four women across all age groups – works or seeks paid work. The figure for women in OECD countries is more than 60 per cent. Second, among those labour force participants, 18 per cent were unemployed in MENA, compared to 6 per cent in the world as a whole, in 2010. Consequently, the number of women in MENA who are actually in employment is even further behind in international terms: in MENA around 17.5 per cent of the adult female population, less than one in five women, are now employed, compared to nearly 50 per cent worldwide. For women who could, in some respects, contribute the most to the production economy, the situation is even worse. Young women, who are much better educated than earlier generations, seek work twice as keenly as the average but face unemployment rates of 40-50 per cent in many countries. The private sector employs fewer women than the public sector. In some exceptional circumstances, private sector employers in MENA have increased their recruitment of women. In some lower middle income MENA economies (Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and to some extent Egypt) export-oriented assembly manufacturing industries expanded from the mid-1980s onwards and took on large numbers of women workers in the process. However, their expansion peaked after a period of 20 years, and they consequently proved unable to maintain their competitive position with the changes in trade policies. Entrepreneurial activity offers an alternative way of earning income to wage employment. Approximately 12 per cent – one in eight - adult women are active in this way in MENA, compared to nearly one in three men. In fact, more women pursue entrepreneurship in MENA, relative to the numbers seeking paid work, than is the case among men. Nevertheless, women’s entrepreneurial activity rate is relatively low in MENA compared to other regions. In most MENA economies, the attrition rate of new entrepreneurial ventures owned by women seems to be much higher than among male-owned equivalents. 1 Specialist UN agencies harmonise the datasets submitted by different national statistical offices so that information is comparable (World Bank, 2012, (jobs), Table 10.2). Direct recourse to national datasets on most issues would open up huge problems of data comparability. 4 Among larger, incorporated businesses, women-owned businesses account at the very most, for up to 7 per cent of the total. They appear to perform as well as male-owned enterprises and employ slightly more women. Among the smaller firms which predominate in the economic structure, the prevalence of ‘high potential’ businesses among established ventures is similar among women and men entrepreneurs. MENA countries with the strongest entrepreneurial culture and the most dynamic, private sector-led economies demonstrate lesser levels of gender inequality. Unfortunately, information on this issue, as well as the others, is incomplete and not fully reliable. In general, therefore, the data show that MENA countries are harbouring a large underutilised pool of human skills and capabilities embodied in the ready supply of women’s labour and entrepreneurial ambition. Greater openness on the part of employers is needed for MENA countries to seize the benefits arising from women’s strong interest in participating in the production economy. This could also have positive economic effects for the region: it has been suggested that a higher rate of insertion of women in the labour market in MENA would significantly improve the region’s poor growth performance. Support for female entrepreneurship would also make an immediate contribution in helping MENA countries to increase the number of the established businesses on which future economic growth in the region depends. Questions for consideration 1. How would you assess the data collected and analysed in this report? Would you consider that a clear picture emerges regarding women’s: i) Educational attainment; ii) Employment; and iii). Entrepreneurship? 2. Would further data be needed to draw a clearer picture on women’s economic empowerment? If so, would national teams volunteer to appraise and collect further available data